God Only Knows Four Moves
by Windchaser54321
Summary: Becoming a Pokemon Master is great and all, but I'm really just fine with chilling with my team. That's cool on its own, right? If only the rest of the world weren't so WEIRD. Rated T because it's about magical cockfighting monsters.
1. In Which I Am Close With My Starter

"Mother, I _need _meat," I sobbed, flopping pathetically on the carpet, in the abstract hope that my cruel and wanton parent would take pity on my shriveled shell of a body. If not, then I would turn my back on the world and die cold and alone as my mother, my own cruel, callous mother, would weep over my grave and rue the day she refused to give me my one and only true desire.

"Tony, drink your soup before it gets cold."

I glared mutinously at her, but I was hungry and dragged my emancipated corpse of a body to the table anyways. "Is it Torchic soup?" I asked, stirring the yellow-red broth in the hopes that a precious cube of meat would float to the surface.

"Vegetarian. It's Tamato and Cornn, now drink up."

I grumbled again, but did as I was told. I refused to talk to my mother all throughout dinner, and when I was darkly picking at the few pieces of Cornn at the bottom of the bowl, she sighed. "Tony, we've been over this. No more meat from now on, you _know _where it comes from."

I said nothing, even when my dad entered the apartment, tie askew and forehead shiny with sweat from the simply walk up the stairs. My mom rose to greet him, and he talked furtively with her, which was uncharacteristic of him because he was an extrovert and one of those lame, jolly dads that cracked horrible jokes in front of your friends at every opportunity.

Pointedly not paying any attention to them, I sat up just as my dad sat down at the table and went to go rinse out the bowl in the sink.

"Your birthday's coming up," my father called out to me, tactfully beginning the conversation with something that I was actually happy about, "You'll be getting your own Pokémon soon, and I'm sure you'll change your mind about all of this silly food business after that, OK?"

There was nothing more than mutinous silence, as I slinked back to my room and shut the door with more force than was necessary.

In retrospect, it's kind of funny, how all this started over me not liking my soup.

Two weeks later, with my little circle of friends at a birthday dinner in Café Sonata, it finally struck me that I was actually getting a Pokémon. Suddenly shaking with excitement, I gave a quick perusal of the small stack of boxes wrapped in bright colored paper, but there was no sphere or Poké Ball among them. I leered suspiciously at the parents over at the other side of the table, talking animatedly with the other kids' parents, and tried to to figure out if it was my mom or my dad who was hiding the secret to eternal glory and freedom and quite possibly a good steak.

My three friends that hadn't turned ten yet were also having a blast trying to figure out what my starter would be.

"Well, what'd you ask for?" shot Trevor, around a mouthful of pasta. Sadly, my parents had stuck with the no-meat rule around my friends, although I suppose cheese was next best. Still, they hadn't even let me get a pepperoni pizza...

"I didn't ask for anything!" I said, distractedly, still peering at my dad's pocket with such intensity in the hope that, eventually, I would develop X-ray vision and see if that lump in his pocket was his wallet or my new best friend forever.

My three friends surreptitiously looked at each other. "Dude, that's not good," said Eliot, shaking his head.

"Yeah," agreed Bret, "Parent's are stupid. Well-meaning, but stupid. You gotta kind of steer 'em in the right direction."

"Like Jimmy? He wanted a surprise from his parents for a starter," Trevor pointed out, eating again. "You know what he got? A _Munna_."

There was a collective groan from all four of us, and suddenly my excited anticipation turned into abject nervousness. What if I got a Munna? Jimmy probably would never be able to live that down. It was a pink tapir with flowers on it for Arceus's sake, and it was so boring that it made _other_ people go to sleep! I bit my lip, and turned my gaze towards my mom, who remained stoically oblivious of the kid's table. I wouldn't put it past my mom to get me a Munna.

"But, hey, Jimmy's parents were _lame_. At least Tony's dad is boss."

"Dude," I said, suddenly distracted by this travesty. "Boss is _not _cool anymore."

"Legit?"

"Meh."

"Is cool cool?"

"Cool's always cool."

"Well, then your dad is _cool_," said Eliot, spearing another piece of ravioli.

Our theorizing was cut short when my parents came by with the cake, and my worries evaporated with the lighting of the ten candles. Forget cheese, _chocolate _was second best, after meat. Unsurprisingly, the cake was frosted red on one half, and white on the other, with the candles arranged in a tight little circle in the middle. At least that dissuaded any worries I had of my parents not getting me a Pokémon at all. I puffed out my cheeks and blew, and minutes later I was munching happily while the presents were laid out before me.

It turned out that Trevor, Eliot, and Bret had all collaborated on my present, and I was pleasantly surprised at that. Before me was all the standard equipment: a brand new Trainer's backpack that was supposed to work like a Poké Ball and lighten the weight, Running Shoes, and a couple Poké Balls. They apologized incessantly about not being able to afford a Pokédex, but I wasn't too worried about that. I could be a cool trainer without one, and, anyways, I was pretty sure that my mom and dad might have gotten me one, too.

And then came the moment of truth. I really loved how my dad still thought it was a surprise that they had gotten me a Pokémon, and his grin was almost as big as mine was as he stepped forward. I noticed that his Simipour was out of her Poké Bll, mainly it because it bounded forward and regarded me with something like a critical eye before snagging a pawful of my cake.

"So, Tony, when a boy turns ten, they usually get their first Pokémon and a trainer's license," said my mom, patronizingly, and I rolled my eyes.

"I _know_, Mom." I held my tongue on asking what Pokémon they got me, since they were obviously getting to the part.

Unperturbed, my mother continued. "Well, you know your dad just went on that business trip on Nacrene City."

Immediately my head buzzed with the possibilities. Nacrene? Nacrene had that museum, didn't it? Yes, I remembered, the class had gone on a field trip there last year. Had dad gotten me a fossil Pokémon? Fossil Pokémon were really rare and some of them were _really _cool. My smile could grow no wider as I waited with baited breath. A Kabuto would be _awesome_, or a Shieldon. I didn't entertain any ideas that my dad could have gotten me an Aerodactyl, but a kid can hope.

My dad picked up the narrative while I was brainstorming. "Yeah, old Mizaru and I decided we could do one more battle, and while we took a little detour into Pinwheel Forest..."

Oh. No fossil Pokémon then. I got over that as quickly as I had gotten on, and then furiously tried to recall what Pokémon lived in Pinwheel Forest. There were fighting types, weren't there? Yes, that's what the teacher had said, fighting types on the outskirts near Nacrene and more bug types inside. I was OK with either. What kind of fighting types were there, again? Maybe he had gotten me a Timburr. I was fine with that. So long as I didn't get a Petilil. Or a Pidove. Wait, didn't he say that he had taken his Simipour with him? Weren't there monkey Pokémon in Pinwheel, too? Had he gotten me a-?

"And so we got you this."

A-_ha! _That lump _had _been the Poké Ball!

He handed the Poké Ball to his Simipour, who put it gently on the table in front of me. Was that a nod of approval from my dad's Pokémon? I didn't know. I was too nervous to care. This was it. The big time. Whoever was inside that Poké Ball would be my lifelong partner and friend.

My other, human friends bent closer, eager to see what it would be, too. I reached out for the red and white capsule with a shaking hand, and then pressed the button.

There was a brilliant flash of white light as the Pokémon inside was released. I blinked my eyes, rubbing out the neon lights flashing on them.

It was a Venipede.

Hmm.

All my other friends, when they got starters, either loved them or hated them. There was no in-between. It was either "Kawaii, I love my shiny Eevee!" or "Oh. Another Bulbasaur. Great."

But Venipede were...cool. Yeah. They weren't that common as starters, were at least rarer than Sewaddle, and had some decent stats and moves to boot. They were pretty cool. Not _really _cool, not _awesome_, but pretty cool. I was down with that. And I had read somewhere that Scolipede were absolutely _massive_, the biggest bug Pokémon alive (and bigger than some of the prehistoric ones), which was beyond awesome and went straight into epic territory.

Still, back at my apartment, I could hear my parents talking outside my bedroom door, a bit apprehensively. They were as nervous about their choice as I was.

"Do you think it's alright? Did I get the wrong one? The look on his face..."

"Sweetie, it's _fine_. You said it yourself, it doesn't matter what the starter is because it's the _starter_. You did say that, don't deny it. You _said_ that all he would need was a little bonding time with it and they'd get along fine."

"Are you sure? Should we have just gotten one from a breeder? I mean, we didn't even have the money for a Pokédex, but I'm sure Tony would have been fine with waiting. I don't-."

"You remember when you got your Panpour? Were you as excited when you first got it? And look at you and Mizaru now!" There was a rough trilling from the Geyser Pokémon in agreement.

"Well...okay..."

_Okay_. I turned to my pretty cool Venipede. Yeah. I would get used to this, and I was already feeling the strings of sentimentality curl around my heart. It was _my_ starter, after all.

I took a deep breath, took the- _my_, I corrected, Poké Ball out of my pocket, and opened it. I flipped on the light and watched the Venipede. Its yellow eyes stared balefully back. I realized that this was the first time I had been actually up close and personal with a Pokémon, besides Dad's Simipour and the ones that the teachers brought to school for us to see. I waved my hand, nervously, and squeaked, "Hi."

"Veni," it chirped, roughly, back, and then curiosity got the better of me.

Slowly, I edged forward and held out my hand to touch the bug Pokémon, but it recoiled and hissed at me, and I quickly drew my hand back. Those spines looked _sharp_. Instead, I watched as its antenna waved around, before it started heading towards the door. It marched resolutely up to the wooden portal, and then looked at me expectantly.

"You wanna go outside?" I asked, automatically slipping into a baby voice.

"Pede."

I opened the door, and it continued its march out into the corridor of the apartment. To the left was the bathroom, to the right was my parent's bedroom, and in front of us was the kitchen. Guess which one the Venipede went to.

My parents had evacuated the premise when they had heard me coming, and it was just a boy (i.e. me) and his Venipede in that kitchen. Still scouring over everything with its antenna, the Venipede began to scrabble at the drawers, trying to climb up it.

"No, no, no, no," I said, hurriedly, picking up the Venipede; it flailed and tried to bite me, but didn't succeed as I put it back down, quickly, again. I squatted down to something approaching eye-level, although I still had to look down at it. "You can't go there, that's where we keep all the food. If you're hungry, I'll get a berry for you- no! Get back here!"

The Venipede had crawled around my feet and its squat body once more shuffling towards the smell of food in the pantry.

"No!" I said, sternly, after picking up the Venipede and putting it on the table, but I hadn't even managed to say more than that one word when it started crawling away again. "Stop it!" I shouted, and in my frustration I jammed my foot into the carpet. Unfortunately, the Venipede chose that moment to drop off the table and I accidentally kicked it, sending the bug flying into the wall. I drew a sharp breath, first looking at the insect's crumpled body, then my parent's bedroom door, then the body again.

Then it got up and started crawling toward the pantry.

"Will you stop at nothing?" I said, exasperatedly, picking up the Venipede with the intent of carrying it back to my room, where my Poké Ball was waiting. Unfortunately, I had tested my luck one time too much, and one of the poisonous spines pricked my hand, which was why, five minutes later, my alarmed parents found me spasming on the floor with the Venipede staring innocently at them from inside the pantry. Thus followed a panicked ten minutes where my father literally slung me over my shoulder and held onto the Venipede (who was still going for the pantry) with the other hand and made a mad dash for the Pokémon Center, with his Simipour bounding behind him and howling for all she was worth along the way.

There are less objectionable ways to finding out your Pokémon's nature and ability, but somehow at the time, knowing that my Adamant Venipede had Poison Point, I really couldn't think of any.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Obligatory disclaimer that I do not own Pokémon.

Here comes another fun little OT fic, hopefully a little more down-to-earth than the rest of them; at this point, all I really want to do is have a laugh or two and put some smiles on some faces. It may or may not develop copious amounts of Plot later, we'll see. Please, read on and review either way!


	2. In Which I Muse Nomer

I wasn't exactly sure why I was still in the Pokémon Center, never mind why I was still in a _stretcher_, but I had a feeling it had to do with my deliriously punching out a nurse while she tried to administer an Antidote because I remembered the ghost story the kids had told around school about Marty Atrice. Either way, I felt fine now and wanted to get out, although every time I so much as twitched a muscle the Nurse Joy shot me a venomous look that said, quite clearly, "_No_."

Resting my head on the pillow, I sighed. There was a little red and white Poké Ball on the drawer next to mine. No guesses as to what was inside of it.

"Jeez, you are nothing but a troublesome little bugger, aren't you?" I asked, and sniggered at the fully intended pun. There was an obligatory groan from the stretcher next to mine, and even the Venipede had the decency to roll his eyes.

I glared, and the teenager sitting next to the bed with a prone Machop on it gave me a once over. "New with Poison types, am I right?"

"Well..." I said, trying not to concede the fact that he was right without actually lying.

"Yup," chuckled the older trainer, stroking his Machop's head as it lay there, more patiently than me. "New to the whole trainer thing by the looks of it, I bet."

I grumbled in a noncommittal kind of way, and turned to the television on the screen, pointedly trying to ignore what I thought of as a pompous elitist. Instead, I watched some kind of news reel on the Elite Four channel about the Kanto Champion relinquishing his title or something to go train on Mt. Silver for a couple years. Weirdo.

At that point, Nurse Joy came by my bedside, checking up on my blood pressure or pulse or something like that. "Say, is today your birthday?" asked the pink-haired nurse.

I smiled. "Yeah, I had my party last night," I said, surprised that the Nurse had taken the liberty of finding out. "Thanks!"

"May you come here for years to come!" she trilled, happily, and went on to the next patient, while I mulled on the exact meaning of her words.

"_Wow_, you really are new to this," whistled the older trainer, shaking his head. "You started last _night_? You didn't even go a full twenty four hours before getting poisoned by your own starter? That's rough, dude. That's rough."

"Shut up," I said, annoyed.

The trainer raised his hands in surrender. "Chill, dude." He extended a hand. "The name's Jimmy." So much for surrender.

I was briefly reminded of my friend Jimmy with the Munna, but this kid was nothing like him. For one thing, he had a Machop, which was pretty cool. Even _if _he was a pompous elitist. Grudgingly, I shook his hand as well.

"Does your starter have a name, yet?" he asked, turning away from his Machop as Nurse Joy administered to it to talk with me. He raised a finger to stroke the Venipede, but the Centipede Pokémon recoiled and hissed at him.

"Don't- yeah. He's a little, er, feisty."

The older trainer shook his head, and for a moment I thought it was out of pity or disappointment, and I opened my mouth to object, but when I saw his shoulders shaking I realized he was laughing. "How's long has it been since you fed the little guy? He's starving!" the older trainer chuckled, reaching into his backpack and tossing the Venipede a Cheri berry. The Pokémon munched happily on the Cheri, yellow eyes considerably less aggressive now that he had food.

I stared dumbly at my Venipede, which actually nuzzled my hand now that he was full and looked imploringly at me. "Why me?" I squeaked, a _bit_ higher than I had intended. "_He's _the one who gave you the berry!"

"And _you're _his trainer. So, come on, what's the little guy's name?"

"I haven't really thought of it," I muttered, safely petting my Venipede's hard exoskeleton. The spines were now lying flat, and as long as I didn't stroke him the other way I wouldn't be getting poisoned again.

"What about Toxin?" said the older trainer, helpfully. "Because, you see, technically it shouldn't be called Poison-type because it's really toxins, since poison is used defensively and _venom _is used offensively..."

I rolled my eyes. "You've been reading the Beginner's Guide, haven't you?"

The older trainer smirked. "You have, too. So what? How's the name?"

"Dude, not cool," I shot back. "That's almost as bad as calling him _Venipede_. It's like, instead of naming your child Human, you called him Mammal."

"Just Tox, then?" suggested the trainer, as his Machop got off the stretcher. He stood up. "Just a suggestion. Good luck!" And with that, the older trainer was gone.

I pursed my lips. "Tox," I said, trying out the name, seeing how it felt. I tickled my Venipede's head. "Nah. But you _do _need a name."

While I pondered, Nurse Joy came by my bedside, again, checking up on things. How long would it be before I got to leave this place? "Hel-_lo_," said Nurse Joy, warmly. "Say, is today your birthday?"

I blinked. "Uh...yeah. It is. I told you that-."

"Happy birthday! May you come here for years to come!"

"Thanks?" I said, quizzically, to Nurse Joy's retreating back. What was up with her? I seriously hoped that my nurse did not have memory problems. Just to be safe, I checked my bedside to see if there was any medication nearby that the nurse may have overdosed me on. Mollified slightly by the lack of any heart-stopping pills in the vicinity, I relaxed into my bed, the unnamed Venipede crawling down from my lap and crawling around the room, curiously.

There had been no one else in the room besides the other trainer, although I could see new and old patients flowing in and out of the rooms in the hallway outside. I snagged the remote control for the TV from my sitting position, and flipped through the channels aimlessly, hoping maybe the television could give me some ideas.

Instead, I ended up watching, dully, a PSA about Poké-Rights, not Poké-Fights. "_No Pokémon should have to be a fighting-type..._"

I snorted. That was stupid. Fighting-type Pokémon were naturally fighting-type, there was no changing that, although my old belief in the adage was shaken slightly from my viewpoint inside of the Pokémon Center. Guiltily, I eyed the hallway full of broken and bruised Pokémon hobbling past outside, and then my own Venipede, who was happily gnawing at the leg of the desk at my bedside.

I flipped the TV off and waited in sullen silence, until Nurse Joy came in and told me I was free to go. As I was being lead out of the room and down the hall, Nurse Joy once again looked at me with complete surprise and said, without a trace of irony, "Say, is today your birthday?"

I gaped, wordlessly, at her, and because the PSA had made me a little pissy I said, sarcastically, "_No_."

Looking hurt, Nurse Joy edged away, saying under her breath, "Sorry, I must have had you confused with someone else..." She scurried away, suspiciously with her eyes averted and head down, and I watched her leave without the faintest clue as to what had just happened.

The lobby of the Pokémon Center was not exactly crowded, but there was a certain quiet hustle and bustle that meant that no one was ever without a job to do or somewhere to go. After stumbling down the hall with my Venipede by my side, I looked around the lobby, perplexed. I guess I was looking for my parents, although truthfully I was just scanning the room for something interesting without actually looking for anything.

My gaze settled on a little sofa to the side, and even though I had just spent the last few hours in a bed, sloth won out and I flopped onto the couch. I bent over to pick up my Venipede, but as I rose I found myself staring into the wide brown eyes of a girl, leaning over me. I stared, blankly, at her, having long since given up trying to understand the day's events. Very slowly, she asked, "Theo?"

"Oh, no, my name's Tony."

Apparently disregarding what I had just said, the girl tugged my Venipede out of my hands. "Theo, it is you!"

"No, no, no, you've got it wrong," I said, tugging back on my Venipede, who was looking fairly nonplussed at this sudden change of event. "That isn't Theo, that's..." I paused. Still nameless.

"No," said the girl, flatly. "I've decided, this is Theo." And she plucked my Venipede away and stalked off. I lunged out and grabbed her jacket, causing her to stumble and thankfully tumble onto the couch. A few items dropped out of her jacket pocket, but seemingly unperturbed, the girl rolled happily on the couch with my Venipede (Theo?) looking at me in confusion. Resigned to the inevitable, I picked up the girl's belongings with some vague idea of ransom for my starter back, and absently flipped open her Pokédex. Besides a little blurb of information that said her name was Elizabeth Smith and she was, in fact, a she, there wasn't much information in it. Next to nothing, in fact. In fact...

"You haven't caught any Pokémon," I said, flatly.

The girl looked at me. "So? I'm going to. I'm gonna catch them all."

"You haven't caught any Pokémon," I repeated. "Including a Venipede. You don't _have _a Venipede."

"Nuh-uh, his name's Theo, and he's right here," the girl said, holding out my starter for me to see, and I took the opportunity to snatch back the very confused Pokémon from her hands. "Hey!"

"This is my starter, you can't take him, that's stealing," I said, keeping my voice low because people were starting to stare.

"No, Theo is mine!"

"Are you some kind of nut job?" I hissed, as the girl, failing to drag Theo- no, my Venipede away, chose to instead pull on me. I stumbled after her, if only because her grip was iron and I liked this shirt. People were also staring, and I smiled nervously at them as a sane reality seemed to grow further and further away. "Are you crazy? Let go!"

"Come on, Theo. We're going on an _adventure_."

Maybe my Venipede had pricked me again or the last vestiges of the toxin had emerged my bloodstream, but in a light-headed, dazed sort of way, I found myself thinking, _Well, Theo's not such a bad name..._

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **The PSA is a little shout-out to a video made by the same guys behind that dark and gritty live action Pokémon trailer. The repeated happy birthday's was something that happened to me in my version of White, where the Nurse Joy asked if it was my birthday _every single time_. Don't know if that even happens regularly or it's just a glitch, but jeez it was annoying...


	3. In Which I Study the Art of War

Skyarrow Bridge was majestic in all of its glory, a sparkling representation of the spirit of free commerce and the unity between truth and idealism that had founded Unova. Set against a backdrop of the sun, blazing over the distant horizon of the sea, while Pidoves and Duckletts flapped overhead, the bridge was truly a beautiful sight to see. It was also really freaking long.

Elizabeth, if that was even her real name (It probably wasn't. Every passing moment I convinced myself that she had stolen the Pokédex, too. Pokédex stealer.) had dragged me out onto the Bridge, saying something about catching all the Pokémon in Pinwheel Forest. I would not have agreed to this. In fact, I did not agreed to this. I had my own journey to head on. It just so happened to be in the same direction and, now, I realized, I had no money.

This girl had bought about six million Poké Balls at the sales counter in the Center, and I had a feeling that if I made her really happy she would buy me a burger.

Bubbling with excitement, the girl skipped along the pedestrian walkway over the bridge. She was positively bouncing, chatting in some language that I highly suspected was English but nevertheless did not understand. It sounded more like a high-pitched buzz, that floated around my head. Sometimes, her wallet or Pokédex dropped out of the pockets of her grey hoodie, and I would pick it up and Theo would dutifully bite Elizabeth's ankle to make her turn around before I put them in my own trouser's pocket.

Still, it was peaceful, if tiring, to stroll across the bridge. Occasionally a truck passed by with a _whoosh_ and the rumble of tires spinning on asphalt, but the commuters had already commuted and there were only a couple others, sight-seeing or on the lookout for young trainers to rough up and take money from. Like me. I learned this lesson the hard way.

The trainer that approached us had no particularly distinguishing features, besides what I later remembered as an extremely snide expression on his face. Actually, I take that back: he had an ugly, greedy, money-stealing expression on his face, if I recall correctly.

I caught myself staring at him, out of a vague subconscious attraction to movement, and by the time I noticed he was walking purposefully towards me.

"Is that your Venipede?" asked the trainer, looking at Theo, who was waddling at my feet, and then me. An Unfezant stalked purposefully behind him and raised its wings for flight.

"Oh, no, no, no," I said, holding up my hands. "I don't want to battle, really."

The trainer raised an eyebrow. "League rules, dude."

"Well, I mean, sure, Theo is mi-."

"Aerial Ace." With a screech, an Unfezant dive-bombed out of the air, took Theo by the claws, shook him a bit, and tossed him away. I knelt by Theo's side and mouthed wordlessly at the twitching insect on the ground. Theo hadn't stood a chance. The trainer held out a hand and beckoned. "Cough up."

I squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, I don't actually..."

The trainer rolled his eyes and turned, without listening, to Elizabeth. "What is this, some kind of scam? Girl, you have any money?"

After I grudgingly explained the rules to Elizabeth, she rather vacantly handed one hundred in bills to the Unfezant trainer. (The rest of her money was safely invested in Poké Balls, to the trainer's chagrin.) He scoffed and walked away, Unfezant stalking off behind him, muttering something about newbie trainers wasting his time. I cradled Theo's broken body, his poor, poor broken body, swore to never let such a travesty happen again, and cried in anguish at this sinful Earth.

The sun was shining very brightly, which put the opposite of a damper on the mood, and rather sourly, I sprayed a light Potion on the deep scratch on Theo's side, letting the wounds heal while he slept. I walked the rest of Skyarrow Bridge with my head down, avoiding potential eye contact. Stupid League rules. Stupid thieving trainers. Stupid Flying types. Weren't Venipede, I dunno, evolved to handle Flying types? It had said something about it in Elizabeth's Pokédex. Stupid lying Pokédex.

Trying to look on the bright side, I grumbled, half to myself and half to Elizabeth and maybe an extra third half to Theo, although he wasn't paying much attention, since he was kind of unconscious, "OK, so at least we invested most of our funds in items, so that's alright, and..."

I paused. Elizabeth wasn't talking. She had been trailing behind me for a while, walking slowly while looking out to some distant place beyond the horizon. I would take this as a relief and not look a gift Ponyta in the mouth, but the sudden change was putting me off. "Hey? You alright?" I shook her shoulder, cradling Theo in the other arm, and she looked, dully, at me. The once weirdly vacant look in her eyes was now seriously alarming; Elizabeth looked on the verge of collapse.

I bit my lip, looking down at the Venipede in my arms and the girl in front of me. "What's wrong?" I asked, slowly.

"Gotta catch 'em all," Elizabeth mumbled. She shuddered. "I gotta catch 'em all...but, we just lost..." Oh, way to rub it in.

I considered something snide and cutting, but instead said, slowly, "We're going to catch 'em- them all," gently steering her down the bridge. "We're going to Pinwheel Forest, and we're going to catch Sewaddle and Pidove and, uh, more Sewaddle...to, you know, evolve later, and stuff, and we're going to train, and..." Jeez, maybe the girl really was mental. And that would just make me a douche.

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

It would be wrong to say that I did all of this out of the goodness of my heart. The girl was my wallet; getting plus points with Arceus was an unintended side effect.

Two hours later, after a very tense walk through the Pinwheel Road (I kept my head down the whole way), I was waiting nervously in the lobby of Pokémon Center. Elizabeth seemed to be feeling better and was ordering something to eat at the counter, but my anxiety was slowly growing. I almost leaped over the nurse's desk when she returned with Theo's Poké Ball in hand. "Is he alright?" I asked, desperately.

The nurse gave me a warm smile. "Your Venipede is fine. Just a quick pop in the machine is all it took." The light of recognition dawned on her face, despite the fact that I had never seen this nurse before in my life. "Say, is today your birthday?"

"_Arceus, _I swear_..._" I snatched the Poké Ball, suddenly livid. I pointed a shaking finger in her face as I stalked away, grimacing. "You do not want to go there. You do not."

Somewhat indignantly, the nurse said, "I was only asking if-."

"You stop that. Stop that right now." Rather moodily, I stalked off and slumped onto one of the worn couches and let Theo out. My mood was not improved when he pointedly turned his back on me. "This isn't my fault!" I roared, exasperatedly. "One loss against a trainer with a Pokémon at least three times your level _and _a type advantage!" Rather stubbornly, Theo refused to so much as acknowledge me.

"Hey, Tony?"

"_WHAT?_"

Breathing rather heavily, I turned on Elizabeth, standing behind me with two packets of something wrapped in paper. Seemingly unfazed by my outburst, but still a little put-off, she shrugged and said, "I was just wondering if you wanted some volcano bakemeat."

Suspiciously, I took one of the proffered packet. "Volcano bake what?"

"Meat, it's an old treat from Joh- hey! Slow down!"

My call to action had snapped her out of the remainder of her daze as, viciously tearing into the packet (I didn't even bother to remove the paper), I chewed hungrily, only to spit out the _stuff_ onto a napkin, nose wrinkled in disgust. "This isn't meat," I said, shaking my head and scraping my tongue clean. "There's like pizza and beans and jelly in it..."

"I think it's rather nice," said Elizabeth, matter-of-factly. "And I'm sure Theodore does too."

In his defense, Theo liked it about as much as I did. Nevertheless, Elizabeth didn't have the money to buy another meal and I was forced to stomach the "volcano bakemeat", although Theo obstinately refused to eat any. Elizabeth sniffed haughtily. "I bet Dorothy would like it."

"Dorothy being..."

"My Sewaddle," she said, crumpling her paper wrapping up into a wad and tossing it into the nearest trash can.

"The Sewaddle you haven't caught yet," I said, flatly.

"But I will. You said," she said, puffing out her lip. I opened my mouth to protest, but she repeated obstinately, "You _said_."

That was how, an hour later, we were alternating training and searching in Pinwheel Forest. Elizabeth said that she didn't want to go far into the inner forest until she had caught two Pokémon. Thus followed a lengthy debate over who actually owned Theo, which quickly devolved into "He's mine!" and "No, he's _mine_!" Eventually, Theo just bit me on the thumb, by means of forgiveness, I suppose, and climbed onto my shoulder. Pouting, Elizabeth had stalked into the grass, muttering something about catching another Venipede.

"Hey, Tony! Where are you going?" she called out, after we had all stopped sulking.

"You wanted a Sewaddle, didn't you?" I asked, raising my eyebrows. "Let's go get one."

"No, I'm not going into the dark trees until I catch my second Pokémon. We'll catch one out here," she said, and folded her arms as if that settled the matter.

"You mean, _I'll_ catch one out here," I muttered darkly under my breath, and then aloud I said, "No, we can't, all the Sewaddle are in the inner forest."

"Nuh-uh."

"Uh-huh."

"Look, I have my Pokédex," said Elizabeth, waving it in the air. "And it _says_, right here, it says that Sewaddle are found in Pinwheel Forest, and we're _in _Pinwheel Forest, so we're going to find Sewaddle out here before we go back into the inner forest, OK?"

"But they're not found _out_ here!"

"The Pokédex says they are," Elizabeth said, haughtily, arms still folded. "Now who's smarter, you or the Pokédex?"

"_Woman_, do you not hear the words coming out of my mouth?" I cried, quoting my father in exasperation, but Elizabeth had already flounced off past the enclosure. A nurse, waiting by the fence, nodded sympathetically, as I clenched my hair in abject misery.

"The girl's always right, kid, the girl's always right. That'll save you a lot of trouble in the long run."

I leered at her, waiting for the inevitable, but the nurse merely looked at me with that cool, knowing gaze and I nodded once and slunk away, not wanting to test my luck. At least not _everyone _in Unova knew when my birthday was...

As I did so, my gaze fell on a patch of rustling grass; I looked at Theo, who did the best shrug he could manage without any shoulders.

Slowly, I ventured closer.

A pink _thing _leaped out of the bushes, and Theo rushed forward to my defense. It was a Pokémon, yes, with giant ears and pink and white fur. My Venipede bristled, squaring off against it. "Tony!" called out Elizabeth. "That's an Audino!"

"It looks kind of lame..."

"The Pokédex says they give a lot of experience and are really good for training Pokémon."

"Theo, _kill_."

Theo growled, wiggling on the spot, but without any actual order he interpreted the command as Bite and launched himself at the enemy, pincers gnashing. The Audino danced deftly out of the way, and completely without warning, began shaking its butt in Theo's way. It made a face, which completely shocked me and, since Theo was still pure and uncorrupted, I shouted, "Theo, get out of there!"

But my Venipede was somehow dazed by the show, and he merely stood there, a starry kind of look in his eyes. Caught up in the heat of battle, I didn't even apologize as I snatched Elizabeth's Pokédex roughly out of her hands and checked the battle log. "She used Attract?" I stared at the screen, then glared at Theo, then stared at the screen again to make sure I'd read it right. "Attract? Theo! You're a _bug_ for Arceus's sake, that's a pink walking rabbit thing! Isn't it, I don't know, in your instincts to hunt them? Theo!"

My starter was still dazedly love-struck, and, angrily, I marched into the grass, picked him up, and slapped him in the face. It stung more than I had expected it to and the little bug still had that look in his eyes, so I shook him and roared, "Theo! Snap out of it!" At that point, the Audino danced over and slapped him across the face. I looked up, dropped Theo, and slapped _it _in the face.

It's body language said, quite clearly, _Oh, no, you did-n't._

The pink Pokémon gave me a back-handed slap across the face, and, affronted, with a bruised jaw, I gave it the full force of my palm, while Theo nuzzled the Audino's legs affectionately. I heard the sound of a camera shutter click behind me, and turned around to see Elizabeth, with her Pokédex outstretched, grinning maliciously. The little red light above the lens meant the photo function was on. "Hey, stop-!"

The Audino barreled into me, and I fell with grunt onto the prickly grass. Panicking, I squirmed out of the way, fearing that soon I would be facing the true power of the Pokémon, but the Audino was trying just as hard to get off. Theo, tail glowing purple, who had either snapped out of it or it had all been a facade in the first place, waved an antenna cheerily from his perch on the Audino's back, and dealt punishing Poison Tails into the Audino's back. The pink Pokémon flailed, attempting to fall back and smash Theo into the ground, but the little bug Pokémon was quick and scuttled onto the Audino's face, safe.

I breathed easy as the Audino, unconscious as the poison circulated through its system, ceased its movements.

"Aw, Tony, I wanted to catch it," pouted Elizabeth, walking over. "Audino are _really_ rare."

"Why don't we just chuck a Poké Ball at it now?"

"You can't, Tony, it's fainted."

"Yeah, so?" I asked. "It's at its weakest!"

"Tony, you can't catch fainted Pokémon," said Elizabeth, in that infuriatingly matter-of-fact voice.

"Why not?" I yelled, my voice growing high-pitched.

"You just don't."

"But...but it...I just...Theo..." I groaned in frustration, something which I was doing more and more lately.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **YES. First reviews. I appreciate it a lot, so thanks, guys! And to the (two) reviewers, I hope you don't mind that I do so love dropping references _everywhere_. For those who didn't get this chapter's, the one in this chapter (volcano bakemeat) is from Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal, which is a hundred times more random _and _hilarious; I highly recommend reading or watching a Let's Play of it.


	4. In Which I Examine Ranger Danger

"_BOOM!_" I roared, pumping my fist in the air in (Theo's) victory, as my Venipede took down another Petilil. The Grass Pokémon keeled over and fell, unconscious, and he shuffled happily, also flushed with the joy of victory. "Theo, at this rate we're going to-."

From behind the thick of the foliage, Elizabeth's voice shouted, "Hey, Tony, have you caught any wild Pokémon yet?"

Slightly callously, I punted the unconscious Bulb Pokémon out of the way and shouted back, "Nope! We just can't seem to get a hold of one."

Elizabeth stumbled through the trees, leering suspiciously at me. Innocently, I waved nonchalantly back.

"Really?"

"_Yeah_," I said, as the Petilil fell with a _thump _in the bushes behind me.

"How come Theo's so beat up, then?" asked Elizabeth, squinting at me.

"Oh, we keep running into them, but they all run off after the first attack," I said, and Theo affirmed this with a vigorous nodding of his head, antenna flapping wildly. "It's really very unfortunate." Elizabeth didn't respond, and slunk off to search more, although she didn't stop watching us until she was completely out of sight.

I waited a minute after that, just to be sure, and then bent down to Theo, grinning. "Ready to pack on a few more levels?"

"Veni!" chirped my starter, and there was a determined glint in his eyes. Maybe it was his earlier defeat, maybe it was being back in his home territory of Pinwheel Forest, or maybe it was just plain stubbornness, but Theo was powering through the wild Pokémon like a champ.

Then again, maybe it was the four times resistance to Grass moves and the fact that we were in the middle of a forest swarming with Petilil and Sewaddle. That was nice.

After an hour of fruitless searching, Elizabeth had decided that maybe I was right and that all the Sewaddle _were_ in the inner forest, where all the Sewaddle promptly ran away and Elizabeth ended up tramping through the grass looking for, well, anything. It was her object to catch them all, after all, and when Elizabeth said all, she meant _all_.

Meanwhile, Theo and I had been intercepting every wild Pokémon that came our way and summarily beating the living crap out of them, and I was feeling pretty good about myself as a trainer. Spirits were high, we were on a roll, and I was feeling _great_.

Obviously, this couldn't have last very long; Theo and I were wandering around a small clearing in the forest when the people disguised as bushes started popping out at us.

When we realized that we had, for all intents and purposes, actually scared off every Grass Pokémon within a hundred meters, Theo and I began tramping through the forest with as much stealth as physically possible for a ten year-old boy (i.e. none). I wrestled through a particularly nasty patch of brambles, sliding downhill after bursting through the foliage. The moment I slid to a halt, a clump of bushes at the foot of the hill burst to life and something bright red leaped out to greet me.

Now, don't get me wrong. This was positively _droll_. I had grown up in Castelia City and visited the gym as a kid, and I got over clowns ambushing me from out of the ground when I was five.

It was the look in the man's eyes that were freaking me out.

"Hey, man," he said, in a hoarse, low whisper, drawing out the syllables erratically. "Hey, ma-a-an. What you doing here, man? You're, like, disturbing nature, ma-a-an."

I could only stare, although Theo took only a second to survey the unusually uninteresting sight before moving on. The man was in an all red outfit, although what looked like some kind of uniform on him was torn and mud-smeared. There were shadows under the man's wide eyes, and little bits of twig, leaf, and bug string were tangled in the man's hair. He was incessantly rolling a Poké Ball around in his fingers. While his... _face_ made it difficult to tell his age, he could have been as young as his early twenties or maybe even late teens.

"Whoa, man, where you going? Chill out, little bro..." The ranger picked up Theo as he walked away, and, protectively, I snatched Theo back. My starter, who was getting all too tired with being constantly manhandled by human and Pokémon, stranger and friend alike, lashed out, irritably, at the ranger, before wriggling out of my hands and continuing his stroll past the ranger.

"Not cool, dude. _Not_ cool," I muttered, brushing past bush-man as well, and suddenly the familiar sound of a Poké Ball opening was accompanied by an enraged, shrill screech. A Pansage launched itself at my head, tugging at my hair wildly, flecks of spittle flying from its frothing mouth, and the force of the impact sent me hurtling to the ground.

"Be one with the Way, little man," drawled the ranger. "We're trainers, right? We looked in each other's eyes, right? Let's have battle, man!"

"Theo, get this thing off of me!" I cried, flailing as much as the monkey on my head, and then there were two Pokémon duking it out on my back. Something cracked. In point of fact, several somethings cracked.

The frenzied Pansage turned on Theo, revealing all its sharp little teeth. My Venipede promptly tackled the monkey, stubbornly clinging on as it attempted to shake my Venipede off, even bouncing up and down in an attempt to dislodge the bug. (This, by the way, was still all happening on my back.) Theo bit vicious into the scruff of the Pansage's neck, at the same time lashing his tail at the monkey's legs. The Grass Pokémon lost balance, collapsing (another crack), before spinning around, whipping its tail into my Pokémon's face. (Crack. Crack.)

"Theo, Protect, then Poison Tail!" The bug curled up just as the monkey's tail descended; it bounced harmlessly off of Theo's hardy shell before my starter sent his own tail flying into the Pansage's chest. Half the weight on my back was relieved, and my lungs expanded in a sigh of relief as the other left just as quickly. I rolled onto my stomach, then drew myself onto my knees. "Theo! Poison Tail, again!"

The Pansage bared pointed teeth, droll dribbling down its mouth, but it was just macho grand-standing now; it gave one last screech before being encompassed by a flash of bright light.

"Du-u-ude," said the ranger, as I groaned, face in the grass. "Your Pokémon fights pretty good, but you need, like, different _strategies_, man. Here, man. New ways to open your mind, ma-a-an." The ranger put a pouch of what I sincerely hoped were just berries by my side, and then disappeared into the bushes.

Curiously, Theo spilled the bag open and sniffed at the berries, but I grabbed them from my prostrate position and said, sternly, "Theo, don't eat those. You don't know where they've been." _Or, more specifically, who's been with them. Ma-a-an._

Elizabeth's high, keening voice broke me out of my bath of self-pity, and, grunting, I forced myself up. I considered the pouch of berries; it was made out of some kind of coarse, woven fabric, with a couple Rawst and Oran berries inside. I pulled one out and I considered it. It did not look suspicious. It was free. It was ripe. It was free. But it had come from a man pretending to be a bush. But it was free. Wrestling control over myself, I chucked the berry as hard as I could into the brush.

A hurt voice, different from the ranger from before, but with the same drawling quality, shouted, "Hey, man!"

"Oh, no," I whispered.

Arms sprouted from beneath the ground and a bemused face popped out of the dirt. "You can just be, like, throwing stuff around _nature_, man."

"You were a bush," I whispered, as the real world and all its unreality caught up with me.

"It's just not right, man. It's, like, littering, man," said the burrowed man, reproachfully, pushing himself out of the ground like some demented self-picking root vegetable.

"You were a bush!" I repeated, louder, just as stunned.

"I might have to, like, battle you over all of that, man, cause, man, I can't _dig _that, you know, man?"

"_Why were you a bush?_"

"There you are, Tony!" said Elizabeth, stumbling through the foliage. "I've been looking everywhere for you, where have you been?" She looked at the ranger. "And this is...?"

"A bush," I said, flatly, and turned around sharply. I couldn't spend another minute in this crazy; my Venipede and I had training to do. "Theo! We're leaving, now."

Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, huffily, but I was already gone. The ranger blinked sluggishly, realized that I was gone, and shouted out, "Peace, little bros!" I had strode far, with purpose, but I could still hear the man. Pointedly, I ignored him, although Theo chirped a goodbye. I smacked him.

"No, Theo," I said. "We don't associate with _those _people."

"Venipede!"

Forgive me for being a little snippy, but I was tired and annoyed and every person I had met so far on my _very first day of training _had either been a lunatic, a jerk, or some combination of the two. This, I told Theo, quite verbally and with passion and with quite a few auxiliary maledictions. My Venipede glared reproachfully at me, before turning around and marching as best as he could with his stubby little legs back into the brush. "Theo, stop!" I cried out, but I had feeling that it was already a lost cause.

With a groan, I dove after him, skidding on the grass. Scooping Theo up in my hands and firmly turning him around, which I found to be an increasingly effective way of dealing with him and he found an increasingly annoying way of being dealt with, I squatted as close as I could to his level. I sighed. "Look, I think it's time we had a little heart to heart."

The Venipede rolled his eyes. "Pede..." the little bug sighed.

"I'm serious, Theo! We need to talk!" I cried out, and closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Things haven't been working out, what with you acting up, and I figured since we're here..."

Alarm flashed in my Venipede's eyes. "Nipede?"

"No, no! It's not- I'm not releasing you, it's just- I mean-" I took another deep breath, my nostrils flaring. "What I'm saying is...I'm new to this. This is _my_ first day, too, you know." The Venipede said nothing, but my starter had stopped trying to shift around, too. "And I know that you used to be wild and this is home and you're not used to this and _I'm _not used to this- but, here, what I'm trying to say is..." I worked around the awkward pause. "We're a team, now, Theo. You and I. We gotta listen to each other, we gotta work together."

Theodore looked torn between rolling his yellow eyes or cuddling me. In the end, he settled for both. "Venipede," he said, reproachfully, and gestured with an antenna back to the ranger den. My hypocrisy was all too evident, but, with a kind of single-minded and tenacious determination, I plunged boldly on.

"So you listen to me, we can't be having fights all the time," I said, firmly, and my resolve weakened. "And I won't treat you like a pet or a minion or anything like that." I sank onto the grass, lying on my belly so that I was looking Theo straight in the eye. "We're equals. Are now, always will be. Cool?"

"Veni," said Theo, firmly.

"No, Theo, we're not- OK, OK. You really want to?"

"Veni, ve!"

"Yes, I know the berries were free!" I snapped, playfully this time. "Look, I guess we can go back and, I dunno, talk with them? We left Elizabeth there any-." I froze. We left Elizabeth there. Elizabeth, the snotty little girl who believed she owned other people's Pokémon who didn't have any of her own _who was my wallet_, in the middle of Arceus knew how many drawling bush-people.

Theo was practically sprinting to keep up with me as I burst through the brambles, tumbled down the hill, and sprawled onto level ground in a muddy, grass-stained mess. I rose, gasping and spluttering, "Liz, why didn't you-?" I finally got a good look at the scene in front of me.

Imagine my dismay when I saw not one, not two, but _three _twig-laced rangers sitting in a cross-legged circle around Elizabeth. "Dear Arceus, they're multiplying," I whispered under my breath. Elizabeth waved, cheerfully, at me, berry juice dribbling out of the side of her mouth, a look of complete contentment lacing her stained teeth.

"Tony, they're so nice!" she exclaimed, reaching out with sticky fingers. "Have some!"

I did not accept the invitation, but Theo did, and with gusto. The rabid Pansage from before had apparently been nursed back to health with a healthy dosing of Oran berries, and the two now rolled in the grass playfully instead violently.

"Hey, dude, chill out," said the third ranger, a girl this time with curly brown hair and a vapid kind of smile. "You're, like, _tense_, man."

The little circle of friends beckoned for me to join them, but I stayed glued to the spot. My emotions had been swinging back and forth like a neurotic pendulum all day, and I opened my mouth, ready to say something testy and irritable, all the warmth from my little "heart to heart" gone. At the moment, though, someone cracked a joke and the ring erupted with laughter. My dour mood flickered like a dying candle as this group of trainers, this friendly, open group of dedicated trainers who had just met Elizabeth today, started talking animatedly, their Pokémon rolling in the grass. One of them scribbled a number on a piece of paper and proffered it towards Elizabeth, who dutifully pulled out her Pokédex and began typing it in, and then someone cracked another joke and they were all laughing again. Liz was enjoying herself and Theo was enjoying himself and I was watching.

_This what being a trainer is about_, I thought, numbly. I had always thought that those "day in the life" documentaries of those trainers befriending town folk and being good Samaritans and learning the true meaning of friendship were a bunch of Numel dung, but watching them now...

I shuffled, awkwardly, over to the circle and sat down, just outside of it, mumbling an apology. Before I could even finish, a ranger had reached out and dragged me into the circle; he was the first one I had met, the one that had challenged me to battle. "You, like, dropped this, man," he said, pressing the bag of berries into my chest. "You didn't even, like, get to eat one."

"Yeah, try it, Tony!" said Elizabeth, the juice smeared across her face showing that she had evidently taken her own advice. "The rangers pick them and grow them naturally!"

Gingerly, I bit into an Oran berry, half expecting out of years of lessons of stranger danger that it would be infused with some kind of hallucinogenic narcotic or at least taste really, _really _bad, but it was only slightly sour and had a wonderfully refreshing flavor. I turned my head, mouth full, to show my approval to the ranger, and looked past the shadows under his eyes to the warm, twinkling brightness in them. I held his gaze for a second, and something older and deeper was reflected in those eyes. Then, a broad smile split his face. "You look like you just discovered food, man."

And then _we_ were all laughing, and _I_ was enjoying myself.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Attempt to _d'aww_ makes me _d'aww_. On a side note, school is tiring and time-consuming and I do not enjoy it, but hopefully I'll find a rhythm that gets these chapters out quicker. Also, _Pedestal_, possibly the best fanfic ever in the history of ever, is OVER. There are still tears in my eyes, and its been over for a week. Bless you, Digital Skitty. You rock.


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